Friday’s campus-wide Day of Unplugging event, dedicated to fostering an environment free from cell phones, social media, and other modern values, spurred many to participate. The initiative’s head coordinator, Jeff Lindy ’11, admitted that some aspects of Unplugged were easier to plan than others.

“Getting students to forego bathing was easy,” Lindy said, noting that many students already display little regard for personal hygiene. “But inflicting the student body with polio and smallpox was pretty tough. There’s a lot of government red tape involving that kind of stuff.”

Although over 800 students pledged not to watch YouTube videos, eat with utensils, masturbate, or adhere to a Copernican view of the universe, Unplugged’s coordinators claim that they could have rallied more participation had the word about the event been spread more efficiently.

“No one checked their email for the reminder, and it was too expensive to enlist the fleet of carrier pigeons we had hoped for,” Lindy lamented.

In the days prior to the event, the Unplugged coordinators’ email accounts were also flooded with nude photos.

“People were mixing us up with Unlocked,” said Lindy. “But it looked like a lot of the aspiring models had already pledged to give up showering, and that was pretty exciting in itself.”

Unplugged saved over 5,000 watts of electricity, averted nearly 900 text messages, interfered with two JDate meetups, prevented at least one incidence of penis chafing, and facilitated several face-to-face conversations.

The group’s next move?

“We’ve been meeting with President Roth, discussing the current internet speed,” said Lindy. “We’re trying to keep it so slow that people will give up on using their computers. So far it’s been working.”

A new student group, the Digital Technology Front Bad Dialup Speeds Must Go Task Force Organization, is tabling in support of an unlikely cause: ethernet awareness. DTF-BDSM-GTFO is targeting Wesleyan’s small but prominent minority of students who do not know what ethernet cables are or understand how they work.

“Are you aware that you can plug a fucking wire into your computer and double your connection speed?” reads a glossy pamphlet distributed by the group. “Seriously. Buy one for four dollars online.”

The campaign comes on the heels of a recent Pew Research Center study on internet competency, which revealed that the number of Americans able to identify the ethernet port on their computers is smaller than the number who use ether recreationally.

According to another pamphlet, DTF-BDSM-GTFO’s other project is a fundraiser to send ethernet cables to Egypt “in order to assist our Coptic brothers in Tahrir Square in building their new regime and accessing Biblical scholarship and pornography.”

But the group does not want the Internet revolution to go overboard.

“We want the Egyptians to have Internet, but not at the expense of the cultural and social norms of the Suez region,” said Pastor/Rabbi Tavid Birkenstock, a sabbath-observing DTF-BDSM-GTFO coordinator. “We’ll make sure to let them know about Day of Unplugging, which will protect their way of life from Western colonial e-hegemony.”

DTF-BDSM-GTFO’s campaigns, on campus and abroad, are informed by a view of the Internet as an end-time vehicle for the period of simultaneous transglobal strife and unity prescribed by the Book of Revelations as the necessary precondition for the arrival of the antichrist and the subsequent Second Coming on Judgment Day, when the gates of Heaven and Hell will stand open to the host of the saved and the horde of the condemned, respectively.

“Also,” said Birkenstock, “note that our witty and eye-catching acronym can be read as a short narrative about a frustrated fetishist attempting to solicit cyber-sex at an e-brothel.”

After going out clubbing on the night of February 24 and ingesting a “shit-ton” of hallucinogens, Josh passed out in Tahrir Square. A lively crowd awakened him the next morning.

“They were all yelling and chanting, and I was like, yes! This is what I came for—crazy Arabic ragers!” said Silver, a Government major. “So I joined in. It was really loud. They were staying stuff in Egyptian, but I don’t speak that, so I kept pumping my fist and jumping.”

Silver reported that the mob rivaled any mosh pit that he’s seen at Eclectic, even the one when Titus Andronicus came.

“Maybe they were upset about the DJ?” Silver guessed. “This NubaRock guy? I couldn’t hear the music that well.”

Josh had “handfuls” of drugs on his person, and he continued to ingest mind-altering substances throughout the next two weeks. He did not remain in the square the whole time, instead choosing to “find the party” at whatever new sites seemed most “alive.” Silver remembers punching “some old white guy” in the face. He said the man was holding a microphone and seemed to represent the Establishment, an institution that Silver despises.

“There was some crazy shit going down,” said Silver. “Cars and water and police. Like Egyptian Woodstock.”

The university student did his best to fit in by copying the gestures of young people around him and shouting requests for his most beloved dubstep tracks, such as “Around The World” and “Sandstorm.” His drug- and bass drop-induced haze did not abate until Sunday afternoon.

“Sure, I probably missed some classes, but this is what study abroad is all about,” said Silver. “Getting to know the people and places of Cairo. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Valentine’s Day typically brings to campus a proliferation of themed dinners at program houses, from Full House’s restaurant-style offering to the Eclectic Pill Buffet and Götterdämmerung, German Haus’s annual “orgy of destruction.” But this year, a new entry from Buddhist House received a large share of student interest.

“People don’t tend to think of Buddhism as a particularly roman-tic faith,” said BuHo resident Ethan Tittler-Schortz ’12. “While it’s true that Buddhism can’t compete with Hinduism’s Kama Sutra and lacks the behind-closed-doors kinkiness of something like, you know, Catholicism or the polygamous frat boy wish fulfillment of Mormon-ism, there’s still plenty going on under the saffron robes.”

According to participant Anne-Marie Jornsson ’13, the couples were first led into the meditation room for forty-five minutes of yogic breathing exercises in order to make them more peaceful and serene for the ensuing date. After centering themselves, the couples moved into the dining room where they took their seats on heart-shaped floor mats at low-standing tables for two. BuHo residents then treated the guests to green tea and white rice with tofu in asceticism sauce.

After dinner, the couples engaged in visualization exercises led by BuHo’s own Erica Marv-Tenny ’11 designed to entice the couples to abandon worldly attachment. Participants were instructed to close their eyes and breathe deeply. Once the couples had established a healthy breath rhythm was established, Marv-Tenny told them to imagine a baby white rabbit in a forest, a green field, and a lotus leaf. Participants were then told to imagine that their significant lover had been killed in a train accident, botched home invasion, or ill-fated appendectomy. After these images had been sufficiently internalized, Marv-Tenny directed the couples’ attention back to the previous images, asking, “Isn’t the bunny just as lovely as it was before? Is the lotus any less perfect?”

The lucky couples then boarded the BuHo love-bus, where they departed from campus to be dispersed, one by one, into the surrounding woodlands. The couples, now separated into their component parts, finally had some time to reflect on the ultimate meaninglessness of being.

Still, some others were less enthusiastic. “I suppose the Buddhist thing was OK,” said Lucy Trupmun ’11, “but next year my boyfriend and I are going back to the basics: Pizza Hut, grindcore, and enthusiastic humping.”